Annie Oakley and I were brainstorming some ideas of how to increase her fundraising donations for her dance team. And she said, too bad I wasn’t little anymore.
*sniff, sniff* Too bad. Those were the days when I helped her get ready for performances, when I brushed blush onto her pale cheruby cheeks, when I shoved her tiny arms through the armholes and slipped on her itty-bitty tap shoes. Those were the days when smiles came naturally and that all to infamous teenage scowl was nowhere to be seen.
Besides her curly red hair, her love for dance hasn’t changed. If anything, her passion for the art has only grown deep and rooted into her soul.
She’s no longer that adorable little dancer that received ooos and aaaahs. No, now she has a grace and maturity that only comes from one who feels the movements in her blood. And when it comes to ballet, instead of ooos and aaaahs, she now makes people catch their breath.
Ever since she sat enthralled at her first showing of The Nutcracker her dream has been to dance. She has since learned to appreciate the varying dance forms outside of ballet. Now it doesn’t matter if she twirls with the fluidity of the classics, pops to hip hop, digs with the Roaring Twenties, or shuffling she loves to dance. She can’t hear a song without choreographing moves in her head. She breathes and sleeps dance.
Her passion is no different than mine for the written word. It’s so much a part of us we can’t not do it. It’s who God created us to be.